


Survivor

by idelthoughts



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Cyberwoman, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is an instinct to live, even when it seems there is nothing to live for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survivor

They let him go home. Ianto wasn’t sure why.  
  
Jack shepherded him into his flat without a word and sat him down on the couch. The telly opposite caught the light and reflected the room back at him; a beige couch, beige walls, and Ianto. Beige. He stared at himself staring at himself while Jack rifled his flat. He caught movement from the corner of his eye now and again, but it was too much trouble to follow Jack’s progress.   
  
He was numb. Funny how a person could be so blank. He didn’t feel anything. If he was still enough, he might stop completely. He was tired - maybe he could fall asleep, and just keep sleeping.  
  
Ianto heard a voice. He blinked and turned his head. Oh. Jack. Jack was tucking Ianto’s spare weapon and several clips of ammunition into the pockets of his greatcoat. The coat flashed open, and he could see Jack’s gun tucked into his holster. The gun drew him in, the dull glint of light, and then it came to him in a flash: Jack, pressing a gun to his face and spitting with rage; Jack, his mouth pressed in a hard kiss, shushing him urgently; Jack, towering over Lisa’s body; Jack, his hand like a collar around the back of his neck, shoving him into the SUV without a word.   
  
The flashback ended, releasing him and thrusting him back into reality. Ianto drew a deep breath, and his environment came rushing in - the stale smell of toast he’d had for breakfast lingering in the air, the uncomfortable push of springs in the couch he’d kept for sentimental reasons, and Jack glaring down at him.  
  
“See that you don’t,” Jack said, continuing whatever conversation he’d begun. “You’ll be under twenty-four hour monitoring. I’ll shoot you myself if you leave this flat.”  
  
Ianto shrugged. “Ask the rest of them ‘round too. They wouldn’t want to miss the fun.”  
  
Jack took a step towards Ianto, and Ianto wondered if he could provoke Jack into killing him. A weapon on his hip, Ianto’s gun in his pocket, surely it wouldn’t take much. He’s almost done it once already today. Wouldn’t it be easier to pull the trigger the second time?   
  
Then again, if Jack was going to shoot him, he probably would have done it already.   
  
If Jack shot him, someone would have to clean up the mess. Clean up the scene, pretend there’d been no execution here, prepare the flat for future rental. He tried to imagine who would do the cleanup if he wasn’t there. Owen? Definitely not. Gwen or Tosh? More likely. Maybe Jack would have to clean up Ianto’s blood himself. The idea of Jack on his hands and knees scrubbing blood out of the beige carpet was ridiculous. He’d probably just burn the building down, and be done with it.  
  
Rough fingers grabbed his jaw and yanked his head around, and he was jarred back to his living room and Jack. Ianto tried to break out of the painful grip, but Jack tightened his fingers and held him. He bent low enough to make level eye contact, and leaned in. For a moment Ianto wondered if Jack would kiss him again. Maybe he would twist his head and snap his neck. He was indifferent to both options.  
  
“Don’t leave this flat.” Jack spoke slowly and loudly. “Do you hear me?”  
  
“Yes!” Ianto pushed Jack’s hand away, jerking his head back with sudden fury. “I get it. Now leave me alone!” His voice cracked, and there was a stabbing pain in his stomach and his mouth watered. “Oh, fuck,” he rasped, hunching over and covering his mouth.   
  
Jack grabbed the collar of his shirt and jacket and dragged him off the couch and down the hall to the loo, tossing him in front of the toilet in time for Ianto to vomit the nonexistent contents of his stomach into it, bitter bile trickling from his lips as he choked and spat. Again and again his stomach heaved until he was shaking and sweating, unable to lift his head.   
  
Eventually his body stopped convulsing, and he sank down to curl up on the cold floor, eyes closed. Everything hurt. He wanted it to stop. He’d give anything for it all to stop and go away. He sank into the floor, ears ringing.  
  
“Drink, eat, shower. Someone will check on you tomorrow.”   
  
He twitched, startled from his doze. He’d forgotten Jack was there. There was a scuffing noise, and then footsteps receding. Ianto heard the click of the front door, and the flat was empty.  
  
He fell asleep, cheek pressed to the tile, arms curled over his head.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Ianto woke slowly and was greeted by the base of his toilet. He frowned. It was in needed a clean. He’d let things slide lately around the flat. He looked at his wristwatch. It had gone eleven, and he was late.  
  
Struggling against his sluggish exhaustion, he rolled to his side and dragged himself upright, stopping long enough to stick his head under the tap and take a long draught of water. It was too cold and made his stomach cramp. He was halfway out the door, shoes and jacket on, ready to begin is nightly routine check of Lisa’s equipment when something twigged as wrong.   
  
There was blood under and around his fingernails. He studied the brownish stains on the hand gripping the doorway.  
  
Screaming. Blood. An animated corpse with Lisa’s voice.   
  
He stood in the doorway for a long time, trying to think if she really was dead, or if it had been a very disturbing dream. His mind kept slipping over the details, the edges of his memory fuzzy and distant.   
  
His unfocused gaze hit upon movement, and he blinked up to see one of his neighbours walking by. She hurried to her door, scurrying in with a suspicious backward look. He’d fallen to his knees in the doorway, kneeling there like a lump and staring at his hands, which just wasn’t done, he supposed. He got to his feet and went back inside, shutting the door and leaning against it, forehead pressing into the wood grain.  
  
No Lisa. No Torchwood. So what was he supposed to do?  
  
Drink, eat, shower. Jack’s to-do list.   
  
Jack. He could ignore Jack, could starve to death out of spite. In reality, he wouldn’t even be able to pull off the more attainable goal of death by dehydration before someone came to check on him.   
  
He’d read once that it was possible to die of drinking too much water. He could do that. Drink and drink until he washed every single nutrient from his body, until his blood ran clear and his body disintegrated. He’d trickle away to the ocean, molecules dispersing until not even thought could hold him together. Let Jack try and hold him then.  
  
Ianto went to the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cabinet, and filled it with water from the tap. He gulped it down as fast as he could, then filled it to do the same again. Halfway through the second glass he felt ill, and it all came up again into the sink, yellow-tinged with bile. The glass rolled from the counter and smashed to pieces on the floor while Ianto hung his head over the sink, sobbing in frustration. His throat hurt, but he couldn’t stop crying, even when he held his breath and clamped his lips tightly shut.  
  
Everything was out of control. His body, his mind, his life, and his one anchor and reason for existing was gone. How could this have happened? Ianto should have been able to fix it, to figure out a way to save Lisa. Instead, they’d shot - he couldn’t, and Jack had - he’d… His mind shied away from the thoughts, settling instead on Jack. Arrogant, pompous, vain Jack. A monster.  
  
Jack, calling his Lisa a monster. Ordering her execution at Ianto’s hands. Asking him to… god, no. He tried, but he couldn’t. He never could. As if Jack had the right to call her…  
  
“She’s not a monster.”   
  
The words were flat, and his voice was out of place in the silence. Flashes of light spun in the dark as he pushed his fists against his eyes, harder and harder until it hurt. His chest muscles ached, and he struggled to breathe. Ianto tore at his necktie with shaking fingers, finally working it off and throwing it down on the floor. Glass crunched under the sole of his shoe, and he stopped, looking down.  
  
Broken glass littered the floor. He lifted his foot carefully to find one small piece wedged in the sole of his shoe. He’d broken the glass. Not even bothered to clean it up, hadn’t even thought to.   
  
Simple life skill, cleaning up after yourself. He looked around at his dingy flat, seeing dirt and dust and clutter. He hadn’t managed anything these last few months. This place was just a dumping ground that lay between Torchwood and Lisa. He didn’t even properly exist here, and this was to be his prison. This beige purgatory.  
  
He closed his eyes. He had to leave. It didn’t matter where he went. Anywhere was better than this.   
  
Ianto rifled a cupboard in the hall and pulled out a small duffel - a long neglected gym bag, from when he’d optimistically thought he could maintain some semblance of a normal life here in Cardiff. He pulled out a pair of shorts and a water bottle and threw them on the floor. He walked from room to room, blindly collecting items, struggling to think of what to take, picking up and putting things down, indecisive, agitated. In the bedroom he pulled too hard at the top dresser drawer and it burst free from its tracks, contents falling to the floor. Furious, he hurled the drawer at the wall with a yell. It didn’t break, and he stomped on it until one side splintered with a satisfying crack.   
  
He leaned against the wall, panting, staring at the gouge in the plaster where the corner of the drawer had struck. After a time, he stooped and grabbed up the duffel, zipping it closed. Whatever he had was enough.   
  
His feet were already pounding down the stairs outside his building. He didn’t remember shutting his door. Didn’t matter. Glass in his shoe, blood under his fingernails. He wasn’t coming back here.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
When he was fourteen, he’d run away from home because his father had laid into him for scrapping at school. He wasn’t angry because Ianto had fought, he’d said. He was angry because Ianto had lost. Full of adrenaline and teenaged rebellion, with a bloody lip and a black eye and his father threatening to add to it, he’d dropped his knapsack and run out of the house. He’d wandered until night, hungry and tired, and tried to sleep under an overpass, shivering for several hours in his torn and soiled school uniform. When the sound of a train had rattled in the distance and caught his attention, he’d wandered to the rail station with vague ideas of hopping on a train to London. He’d jumped the gates and stood on the edge of the platform for hours, holding his place through the busy push and shove of the morning commute. He’d closed his eyes each time the the screaming trains rushed past him into the station, growing more short of breath and quivering with fear as the air ripped at him, his muscles twitching in anticipation. The trains would depart and the station would fall quiet again, and he’d open his eyes, locking his knees to keep from sagging to the ground, feeling like a survivor every time. Eventually someone thought to ask him for his ticket, and when he couldn’t produce one he was collared for fare evasion and truancy, and held at the police station until his mother came to pick him up hours later.   
  
Now, Ianto was an adult with credit cards and cash in his pocket. More than enough to catch a train to London, if he wanted to. Might even be fun, to see how far he could get before Jack or one of the others came to get him. Would he make it to the station? Would he be boarding when he saw Jack coming for him? Perhaps he’d already be on his way to Newport when the train ground to the halt in the middle of a field, and he’d be hauled off in front of shocked early-morning businessmen on their way to London.   
  
He jogged through the pre-dawn streets towards Cardiff Central Station. Sweaty, rumpled, and unshaven, he was sure he looked like absolute shit. The police would assume he was drunk, take him home if they spotted him. Jack would shoot him, if he saw him. Anyone else would probably steer clear a mile. And if someone did talk to him, if anyone stopped him, he’d tell them everything - cybermen and Torchwood and dead girlfriends, because there wasn’t a point anymore, and no one would believe him anyway.   
  
There wasn’t a soul on the streets. Even the drunks had cleared out. He made it to the station unchallenged. His footfalls slapped noisily in the empty square, and he stopped outside the building and stared up at the drab, grey stones. His chest ached and sticky sweat itched under his shirt collar. He hadn’t expected to actually get here, and having achieved this minor goal felt like a failure instead of a success. Since no other good idea came to mind, he went to buy a ticket to London.  
  
“Train’s at five-fourteen, platform one,” the clerk said, sliding ticket and change under the glass, voice bored and eyes fixed on the newspaper spread on the desk in front of him.   
  
Ianto stared through the scratched glass at the clerk, waiting. The man didn’t look up from the paper. After a while, Ianto reached out and scooped up the coins and ticket, putting them in his jacket pocket. He didn’t say thank you.  
  
Up the stairs to the platform, and along to the farthest end, passing a few scattered people. Slow morning, first train. He stopped when he reached the end of the platform, and stood facing the track, toeing the edge of the thick white painted line. An advert opposite him, featuring a vivacious blonde woman with gleaming teeth shilling for chewing gum, stared at him. Her face was distorted where the Cardiff damp had warped the paper.   
  
Shouldn’t Torchwood be here by now? Maybe they couldn’t be bothered to deal with him. Perhaps his punishment was to be cut loose, ignored, and left to his own devices. Left alone with his guilt. He looked around to the entrance at the far end of the platform, half-expecting to see Jack coming for him, but there was no one. He looked down at his feet. A bullet in the head would neatly solve everything.  
  
Holding himself upright took so much effort. Every second he kept his spine stiff and straight felt like a marathon. Every moment of pretending took all his concentration. He stood as still as he could, hoping that would make it easier. It didn’t, but at least it gave him something to do. The moment his attention drifted, his concentration dissolved, and he had slumped, his head dropping forward and spine curving.  
  
He tried to think of Lisa, and found he couldn’t hold her in his mind. Where memories of Lisa had lived in his thoughts, there was nothing but a giant blank. He tried to remember her face as it had been, before the cyber-conversion. He couldn’t picture her without the metal frame. The only picture he could call to mind was painted with blood, with dull, sightless eyes. The same ache gnawed at his insides, and he rubbed at his stomach with his free hand, the other clutching the duffel. Jack should have pulled the trigger. Ianto should have turned his face so that the muzzle of the gun pressed into his mouth. Then he wouldn’t have had to see Lisa die, to have his last memory of her be so vividly wrong.  
  
A thud. He opened his eyes and was staring down at duffel bag at his feet, having dropped it from numb fingers. An overnight bag. Ridiculous. He didn’t want another day, let alone another night. He put a hand over his mouth, muffling the sob that shook him.   
  
The tracks rumbled, and Ianto lifted his head, gasping for breath. The train was coming - set to charge into the station, going fast enough that… His mind refused to finish the thought, but his body knew, and his leaden legs took him forward. His muscles were cold and stiff. One foot over, then the other, crossing the white line into the forbidden foot of space at the edge of the track. One short step, and he’d be at the edge. He was dizzy, and his vision was going dark at the edges.  
  
The lights from the train were blinding. He couldn’t feel his body. The train was loud.  
  
One more step, and his toes hung over the edge. The horn screamed. He closed his eyes. Vertigo struck him, and he started to tip forward.  
  
Adrenaline flared, cutting through his numbness.   
  
No.   
  
No.   
  
_No._  
  
The speed of the train flying into the station whipped at him as Ianto flailed and stumbled back. His eyes flew open, and his field of vision was filled with a blur of motion just an inch from his face. The train slowed to a halt, and he was left facing a door. It rolled open, revealing empty seats in the tail carriage.  
  
His knees gave out. The jolt travelled up his spine when he sat hard on the platform, but he shaking too hard to notice the pain. Hysterical laughter bubbled up. There was shouting at the far end of the platform, maybe the driver come to give him hell for scaring him, or security. The laughter was turning into sobs, and he covered his face with his hands, blocking out the light. Someone was shouting at him, but he covered his ears, pulling into himself. He was being restrained, lost in a sea of heavy wool fabric.   
  
He struggled, trying to push away. “Let me go!” Arms wrapped around him, rocking him. “I can’t. I can’t!” He pressed his face against the crisp shirt, braces.  
  
Jack. Jack was holding him. Wrapped around him, rocking with him.  
  
“You idiot. I thought you were getting on the train, going to run, I didn’t think-” Jack was stroking his hair, rattling on, voice too loud. Jack kissed the top of his head, muttering against his scalp. “I didn’t think you were, that you’d… Jesus, Ianto.”  
  
Ianto laughed in hiccuping gulps through his sobs. What a joke. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t… He was a survivor, he was still alive, and this was his reward. What a shitty excuse for a prize, this life of his. He struggled in Jack’s hold and pushed at him with sharp, furious jabs, blind with tears and anger. “Why, Jack?” he demanded. Snot was running down his face, and his throat ached, and Jack kept rocking him, and Ianto shoved at his chest again. Futile. Jack was immovable. “Why?” He couldn’t close his lips around the word, and it trailed into a keening sound, and he gave up, body going slack, sinking further into Jack’s arms.  
  
Jack’s hot breath in his hair, breathing out, in, and out again. “Because life sucks,” he finally said.  
  
It was so ridiculous, such an inadequate and flippant answer. He could hear himself blubbering. Everything was unreal, disconnected.  
  
He hung onto Jack, because there was nothing else to hang onto.   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Jack took him home again. Ianto didn’t remember the drive home, either dozing or staring out the window until Jack opened his door with a click, tugging at his arm to pull him from the car. Up the stairs, into the flat - door open still, as he’d thought. There would be bugs in the apartment. Moths. Bad news for wool suits.  
  
Like attending to a child, Jack undressed him, pulling off his soiled jacket and shirt. Obediently he removed his trousers when Jack prodded him, and he was directed to bed, tucked beneath the covers in his pants and vest. He was exhausted.  
  
A hand pet his head. “Shh.” Jack’s thumb rubbed his cheek. “Sleep.”  
  
Ianto closed his eyes.  
  
He vaguely registered Jack standing and shutting the door to his bedroom, and then he was asleep.  
  
  
  
  
END

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on [Teaspoon](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=47116). 
> 
> After once again watching Ianto sob his way through the end of Cyberwoman, and reading an article about a survivor who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, I wrote this (for the long-winded explanation of why I wrote it, [click here](http://truthisademurelady.tumblr.com/post/25252580126/torchwood-fic-survivor)). 
> 
> Besides, there's some kind of law that if you're doing Torchwood fic, you have to write a post-Cyberwoman piece, yes?


End file.
